In our third weekly election blog, following the pledges in the Good Lives Manifesto, SeeAbility’s eye care champions Joanne, Rebecca, Lance and Grace talk about why eye care matters and their work towards change.

Everyone is talking about the NHS. There are lots of important topics being discussed at this election, but the NHS is at the very top of the list for many people. It’s one of the six pledges in Learning Disability England’s Good Lives Manifesto, which calls for better healthcare for people with learning disabilities.

This is because people with learning disabilities experience many barriers to healthcare, and access to eye care is no different. With a new government, there is a real opportunity to make things better and our eye care champions with lived experience have a plan of action!

Joanne is an eye care champion in the North West of England, and is a self-advocate who works with other people with learning disabilities. She agrees that eye care needs to go up the NHS agenda.

“The first part of our plan is to raise awareness. People with learning disabilities are more likely to have a sight problem than other people – 10 times more likely as adults. 

“We want to raise awareness of going for sight tests otherwise people might find they can’t do the things they could do. For example, I didn’t realise my headaches were because I didn’t have the glasses I needed.”

Rebecca is an eye care champion in the North West of England. She wants there to be less confusion about eye care, making it simpler for people with learning disabilities.

“We need reasonable adjustments that make going for health appointments better, like having easy read information. I take easy read eye care information out and about with me in my job. 

“But we also hear about people being worried about the cost because they aren’t sure if their sight tests will be free. We want to make sure everyone with a learning disability can get a free annual NHS sight test, a bit like the annual GP learning disability check. 

“This will need a change in the law.

“Disability is no barrier to a sight test. Everyone can and should have a test."

Grace is a London eye care champion. She has had problems with her vision since she was a baby. That means she has lots of experience of hospital visits, sometimes for routine sight tests. Grace has been campaigning for better eye care services in the community.

“We know that hospital eye clinics are really busy places. This can make it really hard for people with learning disabilities, as it can be overwhelming. Throughout my life I know if people get good eye care early on it can really help them. We need whoever is in the next government to stand by the NHS special schools eye care service, which has been promised to 165,000 children to rollout this year. 

“We also need community ‘easy eye care’ pathways in every area of the country. I’ve worked hard to get this Easy Eye Care pathway set up in South East London, but they need to be everywhere, not just a few parts of the country."

Lance is our youngest eye care champion and it’s only the second time he will be voting. He recently visited parliament to talk about his work, meeting MPs, including Marsha De Cordova MP, who has been calling for a National Eye Health Strategy. He also brings his experience of being autistic to the work of the team.

“Sometimes this is about training and better awareness, which I have been doing with my own lived experience. We offer training to eye care professionals about learning disability and autism. We would like to see this part of all core training. There are nearly 2 million people with learning disabilities and/or autism in the UK, and sometimes it is just easy to make adjustments in testing that can really help.”